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3721 Washington Boulevard St. Louis, MO 63108 USA info@brunodavidgallery brunodavidgallery.com

ISLAND PRESS

Island Press occupies a unique position in the story of American printmaking at the end of the twentieth century. Formed at Washington University in St. Louis during a period when collaborative printmaking in shops across the country had become a respected medium that began to command its own following, Island Press has sculpted out a signature niche for itself in the field. The press has become known for its very large and complex works, often created on handmade paper produced in the shop. And, while there are other professional print shops associated with major universities, Island Press is one of the few that relies not only on its master printers but depends heavily on the printmaking faculty and printmaking major art students from Washington University in St. Louis to assist in the contract printing.1 In essence, in the past decade, Island Press has become a shop that attracts serious artists and collectors alike, in a very competitive field that holds high standards for excellence. The story of Island Press begins in the 1960s when Peter Marcus was hired by Washington University in St. Louis to teach printmaking to graphic design majors. He arrived in St. Louis in 1967 and was given free reign to achieve his goals which were to “basically … change the nature of printmaking and how it was taught in the university set up.”2 At the time, Fred G. Becker was teaching the printmaking classes to painting majors, which were only an elective within the Art Department.3 The printmakers only had one 24 x 48 inch etching press that Marcus not only used for etching and lithography as well. Marcus immediately began advocating for a change of the status of printmaking in the academic program and by the school year 1969-1970 the Printmaking major was approved by Dean Lucian Krukowski.

1For example, Graphicstudio, associated with the University of South Florida, was established in 1968. While it was on the grounds of the University, it strove to remain at a distance from the academic structure. Echo Press in Bloomington, Indiana, was founded in 1979 with seed money from the Indiana University but was not associated with the art school students at the University. Other important shops associated with ties to universities include Tandem Press at the University of , Madison; Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper in New Brunswick, New Jersey; and the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University, New York. For a more complete discussion of print shops in the see Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Printmaking in America (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1995). 2Interview with Peter Marcus, conducted by Michael Gurman, Victoria Durrer, Sarah Rowe, Eric Mace, Spring 2000. 3 Becker retired in 1968, one year after Marcus arrived. 2

While teaching at University of Wisconsin-Stout (where he had been previous to his move to St. Louis), Marcus’ work with plate lithography on an enormous etching press made him realize that it would not be difficult to make big lithographs.4 In 1971 he decided to build a big press in St. Louis and, with the assistance of his students, constructed an etching press measuring 38 inches wide with an eight-foot bed. Not only were Marcus’ students learning how to make prints but they were also learning how to make the machine on which the prints were produced. Never before had Marcus had such a large press on which to work. 5 He did all of his oversize lithographs on this press and the students, when they desired, were invited to work on it as well. (At this point, the shop was not yet doing contract work with outside artists.) The big press was built in the art studio space shared by the sculpture, painting, and printmaking graduate students forty-five minutes off campus in the Tyson Research Facility in unincorporated St. Louis County.6 It was easier to build at Tyson, Marcus once remarked, because the “facility of the sculpture department [was] right there … [They had] all kinds of scrap steel, everything you needed to build the thing.”7 The facilities out in Tyson, while commodious, were austere – even without running water until one of the graduate students put a spigot into a fifty-five gallon drum and persuaded the Fire Department to make weekly visits to fill the tank with water. In 1971 Marcus, under the auspices of Washington University in St. Louis, began making prints for artists outside of the academic community. He applied for his first grant from the Missouri Arts Council and received $6000 over two years. During that time Marcus had to print the work of at least six artists, travel their art throughout the state, and present public lectures about the exhibitions. He was assisted in this endeavor by Donald Taylor, one of his graduate students, and once again we see a major project in the Printmaking Department being assumed by a professor and a student.8 By printing on Marcus’ big press the artists produced some lithographs that were 6 feet long. Artists who worked at the shop under this first grant include Ralph Buckley and Hillary McMann. But, the workload was too great for Marcus and he was not able to teach, make his own art, and run the contract shop. Priorities necessitated that teaching take precedence over work in the shop and, as such, contract printing at Washington University slowed down throughout the mid-1970s. 1978 was a critical year for the print shop. That year Peter Marcus hired Joan Hall to teach as a leave of absence replacement for Suzanne Anker who had gone to work in New York City. Anker never returned and Hall remains there

4 Robert Rauschenberg had made Booster, arguably the most important “big” print of the previous decade, in 1967. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the prints that were being made kept getting bigger and bigger. In 1969, Rauschenberg made Sky Garden, a lithograph measuring 89 x 42 inches. See Ronny Cohen, “Jumbo Prints, Artists Who Paint Big Want to Print Big,” ARTnews 83 (October 1984), pp. 81-87. 5 This was the first five-foot wide etching press built in the United States. 6 Hereafter referred to as “Tyson”. 7Interview with Peter Marcus, conducted by Michael Gurman, Victoria Durrer, Sarah Rowe, Eric Mace, Spring 2000. 8 The history from these early years in the print shop is not documented since all relevant records were not kept either by the Department or even the Missouri Arts Council. 3 today. (She became Area Coordinator before Marcus retired in 1999.) Hall was attracted to St. Louis because of Marcus’ big press – she had been making big prints on handmade paper in graduate school and is known for her large-scale work today. Her vitality and expertise are a major factor behind the energy of the operations of the present print shop. Hall was also a paper maker and today Island Press is known for the handmade papers that are used for its prints. (Anker had begun making paper with a hydro pulper in a closet in the mid-1970s.) In 1993 the space for papermaking was moved from a corner of the major printmaking studios to an entire room dedicated to papermaking. These new facilities included a Holland beater and a vacuum table that could make sheets up to 4 x 8 feet. Now (in 2002), sheets of gampi/kozo paper sized up to 5 x 9 feet can be made at the school. However, when Island Press is working on large projects that require many sheets of oversize paper, it is usually produced either at Joan Hall’s or Maryanne Ellison Simmons’ studio.9 It was also in 1978 that Marcus won another grant from the Missouri Arts Council. This time he had applied for money to found a collaborative print shop, which he named the Washington University Collaborative Printmaking Workshop. 10 He used some of the funds to hire a master printer, Dan Gualdoni, who had been working at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles.11 The new contract shop was founded with the support of Dean Roger DesRosiers who, desiring larger quarters for the shop, separated its facilities from the graduate student studios. WUCPW’s facilities, along with the undergraduate printmaking students, were moved to a building on Melville Avenue near Delmar Boulevard. (Marcus preferred Tyson to this new space due to a lack of security and maintenance; eventually the facilities were moved again in the early 1980s.) The new shop partially supported itself by selling one-third if the prints from the edition with the other two-thirds going to the artist. By this time, in the 1970s, collaborative contract print shops had become quite popular. Marcus once observed, They [collaborative print shops] were producing wonderful work. They were working with artists and if you weren’t big time, big name, you couldn’t work with a master printer. My notion was to have people unknown and have people that had big names and hopefully we could sell a few things and keep the shop running … That is the way it worked for a long time.12

9 Simmons did her graduate work in the School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. She graduated in 1992 but by 1994 was assisting on printing jobs for visiting artists. Simmons was hired as the Master Printer in 1996. 10 The Washington University Collaborative Printmaking Workshop will hereafter be referred to as WUCPW. 11 Gemini G.E.L., established in 1966, was one of the earliest collaborative print shops. It is still commands a major presence in the field of contemporary printmaking. Dan Gualdoni had received his BFA from Washington University. 12Interview with Peter Marcus, conducted by Michael Gurman, Victoria Durrer, Sarah Rowe, Eric Mace, Spring 2000. 4

One of the mandates of the Missouri Arts Council grant was to print the work of six artists per year—three from Missouri and three artists with national reputations. Among the artists invited were St. Louis artists George Bartko and Mary Sprague, as well as who, in the 1970s, was at the height of his popularity as an American artist, and Lee Chesney, a printmaker who was teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. 13 All of the works made in those first two years were lithographs, intaglios, or monoprints and, due to the fact that the size of the press was approximately 28 x 40 inches, none of the prints were bigger than the outside dimensions of 22 x 30 inches.14 Raphael Ferrer produced an intaglio while Bartko made a lithograph from a stone and a plate. Both images were appealing but conventional in technique and size. (Gilliam’s works consisted of separate pieces that were sewn together (similar to the canvasses that he had been making in the 1970s). He worked with paper that was printed, cut up, and finally collaged together. Of the time spent in the shop Lee Chesney remarked, ”I have worked in similar studios since and enjoyed them all; however, the freedom in St. Louis was exceptional.”15 Even in those early years, the print shop was distinguishing itself for the freedom it offered artists to think creatively without regard to marketing or sales. While all the prints made then were good, the large and experimental “personality” of the press had not yet emerged. The work was all sold locally with proceeds returned to the operation of the shop. Throughout the early 1980s, the shop continued to produce very respectable but fairly conventional art. During the early 1980s the students began to become more involved in the print production at WUCPW. Integrating them into the contract printing process was a stated mission of the shop when it applied for the 1978 MAC grant. This dedication to the inclusion of the graduate and undergraduates made the shop unique among contract print shops across the country, even among print shops based in universities. In the beginning, the students would be there to help to sponge the lithograph stones. Eventually however (by the 1990s), instead of offering one or two students the opportunity to meet with and work with the artist, the printmaking facilities at Washington University would shut down for a week when a visiting artist came to town. This is still the practice today. Gualdoni, who preferred to work traditionally, was the master printer until 1984. In spite of the role that the students were beginning to play in the contract work, Gualdoni felt that what happened at Washington University was very conventional “in the sense that relationship to the artists, to the presses, and the involvement that the students met was, I think, quite traditional. I think that

13 Other artists who worked at the WUCPW in those first years included Sue Eisler (December 1978), an accomplished St. Louis artist; Hugh Yorty (March 1979) a Missouri based artist; and Raphael Ferrer, who was teaching at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and was showing at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York. 14 The press was an old Fuchs and Lang lithography press that had been purchased by the University for the shop at Delmar. When Dean Roger DesRosiers, gave permission to acquire a larger press, a Takach press was purchased. This press was no larger and measured 30” x 40” as there had been resistance by Dan Guandoli to print bigger. Peter Marcus was still the only professional at Washington University working big. 15 Lee Chesney to the author, e-mail, January 10, 2002. 5 changed after I left ….”16 During the years Gualdoni printed for the contract shop he work with such artists as Roy Lichtenstein, John Lees and David Nash. Jack Cowart was instrumental in arranging for Roy Lichtenstein to produce a print at the shop. Lichtenstein made Study of Hands, a lithograph and screenprint, in 1981. He did not make this print in St. Louis; rather it was done long-distance from New York. However, Lichtenstein did come to WUCPW to sign the edition of 124. The image, done in Lichtenstein’s signature style of flat areas of color outlined in black, depicts four hands made to mimic several different aspects of high and low culture. Included is what appears to be the hand of Mickey Mouse, a hand combing through long blond hair as seen in Lichtenstein’s, by then familiar, cartoon strips, an abstracted hand done in a cubist style, and a ragged piece of wood in the form of a hand. The most difficult aspect of producing the print, Peter Marcus has said, was finding the right red that Lichtenstein sought.17 John Lees was at WUCPW in the spring of 1983 when he produced Arm Chair, a one-color etching that began as an ink drawing on tracing paper and was then transferred to a photo sensitive plate. The 22 x 24 ½ inches print is a poignant rendition of a lone chair, an inanimate portrait of its owner, placed in an empty space—it is imagery that recalls Van Gogh’s rendition of a similar topic nearly 100 years earlier.18 Yet, once again, this print was fairly conventional when compared with the bold oversize contemporary prints that avant-garde artists such as Robert Rauschenberg of Frank Stella were producing at the time. David Nash first came to St. Louis to work in 1983 when he printed with Dan Gualdoni.19 He visited again two years later when he printed with Howard Jones. Both times Nash, a sculptor from North Wales, Britain ?, had been invited to come to St. Louis to mount exhibitions of his wood installations. Whenever possible, the print shop would invite out-of-town artists visiting St. Louis to make a print. David Nash was one of those artists who accepted that invitation. His prints were based on his sculptures that were hewn from fallen trees and transformed into poignant works of art. Gualdoni considered his duties at the shop to be quite traditional —in addition to serving as the master printer, he saw his obligation as maintaining the facilities and supervising the scheduling of the students when contract work was being produced at WUCPW. Eventually, Gualdoni decided to leave the shop because he found that as a master printer who was responsible for daily operations, he had little time to devote to his own work. He left in 1983. When Dan Gualdoni left the WUCPW, Roger DesRosiers hired Howard Jones who had trained at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. As one who enjoyed teaching, Jones was attracted to the symbiotic relationship between the visiting artists and the students, which was (and still is) a unique situation within a

16 Interview with Don Gualdoni, conducted by Victoria Durrer, Will Craven and Sara Row, 20 April 2000. 17 Peter Marcus to the author, November 28, 2001. 18 In 1888 Van Gogh painted two “portraits” of chairs: Vincent’s Chair with his Pipe is at the National Gallery, London and Gauguin’s Armchair is at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. 19 A subsequent visit was made in 1985. 6 contract printmaking shop. Jones spent just a few years at the shop, working there from 1984 until 1986. Among those artists with whom Jones printed in 1985 were Peter Dean, Sonja Blomdahl and Marvin Lipofsky. Dean came to St. Louis fresh from an experience at Landfall Press, a contract printmaking shop in Chicago, where he had made a lithograph with Jack Lemon one year earlier.20 Dean was a Jew who fled Nazi with his parents. The tension filled memories that he had of those very early years of his life, followed by ever-constant reminders of the Gestapo that lingered with his parents even when they were safely ensconced in the United States, permeated his images when he became a mature artist. The two lithographs that Dean made in St. Louis (Kiss One and Kiss Too) recall the tortured expressionist style of his native Germany. Sonja Blomdahl’s was an established glass artist who had studied at Orrefors Glass Skolen in Sweden. Recreating the Chaos, the lithograph that she made at WUCPW, references her glass forms, even capturing the joy she found in the colors of her glass. The red and blue in her print glow in a similar manner that she sought for her three-dimensional work. Marvin Lipofsky was another glass artist who made a print with Jones that year. St. Louis Print was a lithograph made from 5 plates. Whereas Blomdahl brought her fascination with color to her two-dimensional work, Lipofsky’s image glows with a translucency with which he was so acquainted in his glass creations. In 1986 Joyce Kozloff taught at Washington University. Since one of the missions of the print shop had always been to work with visiting artists, she was enlisted to work in the shop where she printed an intaglio with Howard Jones. Kozloff was not a stranger to working in print shops and, for example, had previously spent time at SOLO Press making lithographs with Judith Solodkin. (Both Kozloff and Solodkin had been at Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque in 1972.) Therefore, Kozloff came with a strong professional experience of printmaking. Howard Jones left WUCPW in 1986 because he wanted to do more teaching and because he felt he was no longer being challenged by the work he was doing. He was succeeded in late 1986 by Kevin Garber. By this time, the graduate students and WUCPW facilities at Tyson, along with the undergraduates and their print shop at Delmar were consolidated into one space at Bixby Hall on campus.21 Now, all of the operations were situated in one building. The fact that the shop was now located where all the students were working made it far more accessible to them. The print shop had two presses in Bixby – one press had a 38” bed and the other one had a five foot bed. And, Bixby also had papermaking facilities which included a hydro pulper and a vacuum table for pressing pulp.22 Yet, even with the large five foot press, the prints being produced were still fairly conventional. While Peter Marcus, who headed the School of Art, Department of Printmaking and Drawing, had been the

20 For further information on Landfall Press see Joseph Ruzicka, Landfall Press: Twenty-Five Years of Printmaking ( Art Museum, Wisconsin, 1996). 21 This move occurred in 1985. 22 The vacuum table was made by Joan Hall. 7 driving force behind the collaborative workshop and while his own work was very large, he was not the master printer at WUCPW and, therefore, his influence on the prints produced there was not as great as that of the master printers who were a constant presence on the premises. Gualdoni, Jones, and Garber were all traditional printmakers and none of them had a great desire to make big prints. Indeed, Garber once remarked, “[Marcus] didn’t want to get locked into the traditional print world and had no intention of teaching students about that … I came in and balanced that out and tried to bring in some of the traditional media ….”23 Garber was initially hired to teach stone lithography, a very traditional medium that is over two hundred years old. Indeed, in the first year Garber printed at the shop, three of the four prints that he worked on were very traditional stone lithographs.24 Paul Mason made Shut-Ins (1986) and Ivo Petkov produced The Two and The Two 2 . Not only was their size traditional (the largest is c. 26 x 34 inches) but the images were drawn on the stones with conventional lithographic crayons or liquid touche applications and printed in the traditional manner. This concentration on stone lithography changed very quickly. Because of their weight, large stones were difficult to handle. Additionally, in traditional stone lithography, once an image is printed from the stone, that stone is ground down and used again. There would be no recourse if there was ever the need for the image to be reprinted at a later date after that image was removed from the stone. (In other types of printmaking, such as intaglio, screenprinting, or woodcut, the matrix plate can be retained for further use if needed.) Finally, if WUCPW was going to distinguish itself from other shops, it had to move into a more unconventional direction. By the end of the 1980s (1988 and 1989), however, in addition to printing more traditional work for artists, Garber was working on prints that were becoming more complex.25 For example, Michael Hall, a sculptor who was teaching at Cranbrook Academy of Art, made WALTZ (with a right hand man), 1988, a collagraph from four masonite plates, wiped intaglio and rolled relief. Peter Marcus had invited Hall to work at the shop and insisted that he make a collagraph because its three-dimensionality was not unlike sculpture. James Drake, an artist from Texas, had exhibited nationwide by the time he was invited to St. Louis to work in the shop. He made Dancing with the Equinox, 1989, a lithograph from two plates, screenprint from one screen, and a monoprint. While it was not highly experimental in comparison with work done in other shops, when viewed in the context of the environment at the WUCPW, it signals a move away from very traditional work to one that was becoming more complex.26 The split image, with a solid area of black filling the bottom half of the composition while a man and woman interacting with each other occupy the top half of the composition above, is typical of his work during this period. As in other works that

23 Interview with Kevin J. Garber, conducted by students, 3 April 2000. 24 In addition to the three lithographs mentioned in the text, the forth print that Garber worked on that year was Untitled, an intaglio, which he is listed as the co-artist with Ivo Petkov. 25 The conventional prints that he continued to make in this two year period include James Drake, Two to Tango, 1989; Phyllis Plattner, Untitled, 1989; Stephen Sidelinger, Largo, 1989; Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Cahokia, 1989; and Joseph Stefanelli, Sho Me Litho, 1989. 26 This movement away from conventional looking work would accelerate dramatically within the next few years. 8

Drake was creating then, Dancing with the Equinox is about opposites—light and dark, man and woman—and is typical of his work during this period.27 In addition to Drake, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was another artist with a strong national reputation who was invited to work at the shop in St. Louis in 1989.28 As a member of the Flathead Nation in Montana her identity with her Native American heritage permeates the art that she makes. Cahokia was made during this first visit to WUCPW. Cahokia is the name of the Native American mounds near St. Louis that Quick-to-See Smith visited when she was in the area. As a hand-colored stone lithograph that was not large, Cahokia still represented more conventional leanings of the work being done at WUCPW at the end of the 1980s. Other artists who printed at WUCPW in this period were Lise Drost, a lithographer who would eventually write a text on the medium, Stephen Sidelinger, and Phyllis Plattner, who had printed with Dan Gualdoni at WUCPW in 1984/5. All three artists made lithographs although Drost incorporated chine- collé into her print, Washington University Window.29 The layering achieved by chine-collé is consistent with her desire to depict the “clutter of reference material in my studio and the jumble of visual information in my head.”30 When one looks through a window, as in the St. Louis image, one sees spatial depth in layers. “Printmaking processes are peculiarly suited to the images I want to make; layering down one color at a time, one layer at a time aids rather than hinders my creativity,” she said.31 In 1989 Joan Hall went to South Dakota to make a print with Lloyd Menard at the University of South Dakota. Her experience there created a tremendous change in the environment at WUCPW. Menard, as the master printer, had not one or two students assisting him, which was the procedure in St. Louis, but an entire team of students who worked with him in producing the print. Indeed, his undergraduate and graduate students were required to assist a visiting artist in order to finish their degrees. For a week, Hall worked with Menard and his students, making paper and then her prints. “I learned how to direct the students to do different aspects [of the work] – inking, tearing paper, etc…we could realize Peter’s [Marcus] wish to make the contract shop something different. By involving the students and faculty we could realize more complex projects and introduce papermaking.”32 (Previously, paper was not made in the collaborative shop but only in the printmaking department.)

27 Drake was at Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque during the same period where he made Let’s Kiss Like We Were Really Lovers. This similar split image is also about opposites, in this instance “darkness and light, sex and money, presence and absence.” See Susan Tallman, “Socks, Politics, and Prints,” in Tamarind 40 Years, editor, Marjorie Devon (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), p. 112. 28 Peter Marcus had met Quick-to-See Smith at a National Endowment for the Arts panel and subsequently invited her to work in St. Louis. 29 At this point in her career, Drost was a young artist with a promising future. Subsequently (in 1993), she became Head of the Printmaking Program at the University of Miami, Florida. 30 “Lise Drost, Artist Statement,” http://www.as.miami.edu/art/drost_artstate.html. 31 “Lise Drost, Artist Statement,” http://www.as.miami.edu/art/drost_artstate.html 32 E-mail from Joan Hall to the author, 27 December 2001. 9

Hall was impressed with the energy in the shop produced by all the people working on her print. And, the opportunity that was afforded the students who actually helped to make the print (rather than merely sponging a lithographic stone or plate) allowed them to get into the artist’s mind to watch her thinking and problem solving. They learned that one can tackle seemingly unsolvable obstacles with positive results.33 This, Hall felt, was the critical essence of an education and as a teacher; she could make this happen in St. Louis too. She returned to Washington University revitalized. Now, it is not unusual to find 10-12 students working with the master printer on the production of one print in the shop. Again and again, artists who have worked at the shop at Washington University cite the impact that this aspect of student involvement has had upon their experience in St. Louis. “I was able to achieve on a more ambitious level than I had expected because of them,” Juan Sanchez remarked.34 Joyce Scott she saw her presence as didactic, she was helping “the next generation of artists be productive.”35 In short, she was teaching. Hall re-organized the operations at WUCPW and took the contract printer, then Kevin Garber, out of the isolation of the small space that had been assigned the shop. Additionally, Marcus and Hall were assuming a greater involvement in the print production, encouraging the visiting artists to make collagraphs rather than lithographs. This was a far more labor-intensive process, requiring faculty, and even returning alumni, to assist the master printer. The first person that was invited to WUCPW after Hall’s return to St. Louis was Lloyd Menard.36 He was actually invited as a visiting artist so “we could watch him orchestrate our students,” Hall remarked.37 Garber worked, with the students under his direction, on Menard’s prints in the larger facilities of the printmaking department.38 Menard arrived with a pile of large ready to be printed handmade papers (measuring 4 x 7 feet). He worked for a week making a series of very large unique prints. Unfortunately, those prints were destroyed in a gallery fire in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and all that is left of the week he spent in St. Louis are the small helper prints. Nevertheless, the Menard experience was cathartic for the St. Louis shop and the Department was energized with the new way of working. Juan Sanchez was among the first artists to follow Menard to WUCPW (1990).39 Joan Hall met Sanchez at a presentation that he made at the Kansas City Art Institute two years earlier and invited him to make prints in St. Louis. Sanchez, who was well-known on a national scale and had just won a John Simon

33 In print shops, normally the master printer will receive a “printer’s proof” for work done on the edition. In Menard’s shop, in addition to the master printer receiving the printer’s proof, each student received a “helper print.” Hall brought this practice to the shop at Washington University. A “helper print” was most often a special edition or print made specifically for students. 34 Juan Sanchez to the author, 16 December 2001. 35 Joyce Scott to the author, 5 December 2001. 36 Menard went to WUCPW in 1990. 37 E-mail from Joan Hall to the author, 27 December 2001. 38 At this point, Peter Marcus was the Director of the WUCPW but Hall, who had been in the Department for more than ten years, was yielding a great deal of influence in the decision making. 39 Sanchez would return to make prints in St. Louis again in 1997. He has subsequently printed with Maryanne Simmons at Wildwood Press where he has made three editions and is working on a fourth (Spring 2002). 10

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1988, had never made a print the size suggested by Hall and Marcus. Like Menard before him, Sanchez worked in the shop for a week, assisted by Kevin Garber and Joan Hall and an entire team of students. He produced Cielo/Tierra/Esperanza (Heaven/Earth/Hope, a lithograph and collagraph on handmade paper measuring 44” x 29 inches. The top half of the image includes a photo-lithograph of two Puerto Rican girls set against depictions of Taino Indian petroglyphs and hearts.40 The hearts are sacred hearts that refer to the Catholic Church. The lower half of the print contains an upside down rendition of the American Bald Eagle that has been crossed out, skulls, and Spanish text which reads, “Marcharan nuestras fuerzas dirigidas para poner en pie nuestraos afanes y coronar de asombro nuestras vidas.” The translation is “Our directed strength will set in motion our aspirations and crown with astonishment our life,” quoted from Juan Antonio Corretjer (1908-1985), Puerto Rico’s national poet and patriot. Sanchez’s work has always been political, referring to his Pureto Rican heritage. His intention is to “raise a level of consciousness, and to serve a function of self-empowerment so that people could go out and change the things that are repressing and oppressing them.”41 Set within symbols of their past, the small girls represent a future of hope and realization that advancement and reform is possible. The week that Sanchez spent in St. Louis was significant for both the artist and the shop. It was exhilarating for Sanchez to make a print on this large a scale. “You all have converted me into some type of ‘born again giant print maker,’” he wrote to Hall and Garber.42 Since there was not yet a space at Island Press dedicated to papermaking, paper for the project was purchased locally but Hall then used a pulp sprayer to pigment the top sheet and then encouraged Sanchez to use drawing pulps. This was the first time that Sanchez had worked with any type of handmade paper and it was also the first time that Hall had encouraged a contract printmaker to use it at WUCPW. The experience was so positive that Sanchez began working with handmade papers whenever the opportunity presented itself and Hall purchased a Hollander beater for the school and began making paper on site. Additionally, Sanchez was impressed by the vitality of the shop, intensified by the energy of the students. 43 He remarked that working with them was “almost like performing surgery” – they were right there to assist in any way possible. And, he was “able to achieve on a more ambitious level than he had expected because of them.” Kevin Garber added, “you can see in that print the energy that came from the different personalities.”44 The attitude, fostered by Garber and Hall, that anything was possible produced an “open and free” environment that, Sanchez felt, made the prints he produced in St. Louis

40 The Taino Indians inhabited Puerto Rico when Christopher Columbus sailed to America. They had disappeared by the end of the sixteenth century. 41 Susan Canning, “Interview: Juan Sanchez,” Art Papers 14 (July-August, 1990), p. 30. 42Letter from Juan Sanchez to Joan Hall and Kevin Garber, June 18, 1990. Island Press, Washington University’s School of Art Collaborative Print Workshop Archives, Washington University in St. Louis. 43 Juan Sanchez to the author, December 16, 2001. Unless otherwise indicated, subsequent comments were also made in this same conversation with the author. 44 Interview with Kevin J. Garber, conducted by students, April 3, 2000. 11 unique.45 Cielo, Tierra & Esperanza “quickly became the standard by which all subsequent editions were measured,” remarked Maryanne Simmons who became the press’s master printer in 1996.46 With the contribution of Joan Hall’s vitality and foresight, the environment of work intensive experimentation on a large scale that Peter Marcus envisioned in the 1970s was finally being realized in the 1990s. Five artists made prints at the shop in 1991.47 (Because the WUCPW prints were becoming so large and increasingly more complex, by the mid-1990s the number of artists invited to work at the shop was decreased to two or three a year.) Alan Cober, an accomplished illustrator who was widely published, collected, and exhibited, made three prints at Washington University in 1991. Moosatari was a large etching that he printed with Kevin Garber. The whimsical, fantasy figure is typical of Cober’s, style which was based on the draughtsman qualities that had earned him renown as an illustrator whose work appeared in publications such as Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone Magazine. In keeping with the print shop’s new emphasis on large size works, two of the three prints that Cober made were 41 x 29 inches. The third, Kevin and Jeff, was 15 x 18 inches, a more traditional size for an etching.

British artist, Sue Coe also visited the WUCPW in 1991. She had come to the United States in 1972 and by the mid-1980s was well-known for her social- protest images in journalism. Her art addressed issues such as animal rights, AIDS, African apartheid, racism in America, and women’s rights.48 In early November 1991 she made four prints at WUCPW including Thank You America .which addressed the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas that had just been held in October. In those Senate hearings Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment, a claim that he consistently denied. Eventually Clarence Thomas was granted a seat on the Supreme Court but it was amidst the swirling controversy of sex, gender, and race. The country was bitterly divided between those who supported Thomas as a brilliant judge who deserved this appointment and those who saw him as an opportunistic liar out to ascend to the highest court in the land and destroy Anita Hill in the process. Sue Coe depicts Hill, her hands tied behind her back, being burned at the stake. Coe interpreted the episode as a witch-hunt, symbolized by the witch on the broomstick at the top of the image. The Senators, all men, on the Judiciary Committee look out at her as she burns and the press watches her suffering. Men who have condemned her surround Hill – there is no redemption. The work was one of the most powerful that had been produced at WUCPW.

45 This impression was substantiated even further when he returned to St. Louis again in 1997 to print with master printer Maryanne Simmons. (Simmons was among the graduate students who worked on Sanchez’s 1990 print.) 46 Maryanne Simmons quoted in “Sanchez Show Celebrates Island Press Collaboration,” Press Release, October 2000. Island Press, Washington University’s School of Art Collaborative Print Workshop Archives, Washington University in St. Louis. 47 Those five artists were Rita DeWitt, Alan Cober, Sue Coe, Donald Farnsworth, and Robert Nelson. 48 Indeed, Coe was so well known for her political voice that the AIDS Foundation of St. Louis had expressed the desire to work with Washington University in bringing Coe to St. Louis in order to make a print for fundraising purposes. This print was never realized. 12

When Hung Lui was invited to the shop in St. Louis in 1992, she was the first artist whose visit and work were sponsored by the Women’s Society of Washington University.49 The support that the Women’s Society gave was an important boost to the program because it enabled the print shop to use better materials and also made it possible for the artists to receive an honorarium. These two factors, combined with the shop’s growing reputation for excellence, were instrumental in attracting artists who may not otherwise have considered working at WUCPW. Indeed, Marcus remarked “without the Women’s Society we wouldn’t have done some of the most interesting prints that we have ever done.”50

Hung Liu was born in China, educated in Beijing, and “re-educated” during the Cultural Revolution when she was sent away from her parents and into the countryside. Upon her return to Beijing she taught painting at the Central Academy of Fine Art where social realism was the official, and the only, style that instructors could teach. Photography was considered subversive, and indeed, many of Hung Liu’s photographs of her immediate family were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Hung Liu came to the United States in 1984. She made five prints while she was in St. Louis in 1992.

When Liu printed with Kevin Garber the works were standard sizes (approximately 20 x 30 inches) but Missing Parts , the print that she made with Joan Hall, at Hall’s urging was very large – 40 x 67 inches. It was also done on handmade paper produced in Hall’s studio while the works done with Garber were not.51 Missing Parts depicts traditional Chinese facial features, similar to the figural styles that Hung Liu had to teach when she was in Beijing. In the center of the composition is a photographic image of a 2000-year-old jade burial suit. By combining images of codified facial types with photography, a medium forbidden to her in her homeland, Liu was openly referencing the issues that she was forced avoid as an artist working in China.52

49 Subsequently, the society has sponsored the following artists at WUCPW: Jody Pinto, Spring 1993; Frida Baranek, Spring 1994; Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith, Spring 1995; Rocky Toner, Spring 1996; Joyce Scott and Elizabeth Talford Scott, Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1998; and Susan Shie and James Acord, Fall 1999. 50 Peter Marcus to the author, 11 November 2001. 51 The paper was made in Hall’s personal studio because Island Press did not yet have facilities dedicated to producing handmade paper. (This was the first WUCPW print made entirely on handmade paper produced by the shop.) Hall later posited that perhaps handmade paper was used for this print because it was a woodcut, which lent itself to the use of handmade papers. A lithography stone would have cracked if those papers were used on it. (Joan Hall to the author, 19 May, 2002, notations on manuscript.) 52 The idea of phrenology, a theory that physical facial types had a direct relationship to personality types, was very popular in western thinking in the 19th century. While Hung Liu was not necessarily addressing the idea of phrenology in her print, she did talk at length about it while she was making the print. (Letter from Maryanne Simmons to David Kiehl, 7 February 2001, Island Press Archives, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.) 13

Family Values ,the print that Henrik Drescher made at WUCPW in 1992, is yet another indication that the type of print coming out of the shop was changing.53 When assembled it was forty-nine inches wide and rather than making a conventional etching, Drescher experimented by incorporating coffee stains, holes in the paper, as well as collaged elements that included images from commercial publications or handwritten farming reports. The work was a diptych backed with red Japanese paper visible through holes in the print. No longer was the shop content to merely publish conventional prints; rather Marcus, Hall, and Garber were now encouraging their visiting artists to think “out of the box,” to try untested processes, push the boundaries; while at the same time using the resources afforded them by WUCPW. In addition to the master printers, the print shop could now offer a very large press, the papermaking expertise of Joan Hall, and the time and fresh energy of all the students who were available to assist in the production process. This unique combination of personnel, equipment, creativity, and an attitude that anything was possible, began to give the work coming out of WUCPW the look that distinguishes it today.

By 1994 the program had become so ambitious that the staff could not handle all of the work that was required by the artists coming to visit the print shop.54 Maryanne Ellison Simmons, who had graduated from Washington University in 1992 with a Masters of Fine Arts in printmaking, was called in to help when Tom Nakashima and Frida Baranek were in residence. Simmons was not asked to work on the more conventional prints, rather her presence was requested when an artist was responding to Marcus’ or Hall’s push to work beyond an individual’s tested successes in printmaking. Simmons’ experience in printmaking as a graduate student at the University already had given her the opportunity to work with professional artists-in–residence, and she was undeterred by the scope of work that was being produced by Marcus’ and Hall’s prodding of their artists to experiment with the medium.

While Tom Nakashima was well-known as a printmaker and painter by the time he arrived in St. Louis to make prints, he had never worked as big as he did with master printer, Kevin Garber, in January 1994. Among the prints he produced were Wigwam + Tree and The Wait , both images that related to work he had done previously. The Wait, depicting a fish inside a structure that resembled early Renaissance churches found in Giotto’s paintings, addressed issues of the convergence of Western (the Giottoesque building) and Eastern cultures (the fish) in Nakashima’s past.55 Wigwam + Tree consisted of the skeletal structure of a native-American wigwam, open to the elements, with a tree growing through its roof. The open building can signify either a nurturing place that cultivates and supports growth, or, it could also be a prison through which life must break in order to grow. Both prints were collagraphs (the influence of Marcus) with hand-

53 Maryanne Ellison Simmons to Marilyn Kushner, November 28, 2001. Drescher is a contemporary illustrator. 54 Because of the labor intensive aspects of the prints that were being produced, the print shop eventually decided to invite only two or three artists per year. This policy became evident by the late 1990s. 55 Ever cognizant of his heritage, Nakashima’s mother was a Canadian of German-Irish descent and his father was of Japanese ancestry. 14 applied strips of newspaper and etching. Gold leaf and red acrylic paint were also applied by hand to The Wait. Wigwam + Tree was an enormous print measuring seventy-two inches high by fifty-three inches long. Nakashima, who had never made a collagraph or printed that large previously, was clearly motivated to do so by the atmosphere in St. Louis at the print shop. The shop was succeeding in persuading its visiting artists to expand their horizons and work in a manner that they had never before attempted. Even Kevin Garber, who considered himself a traditionalist specializing in stone lithography, went beyond his preferred medium to help produce exemplary works of art.

In 1994 Frida Baranek, a Brazilian sculptor known for her wiry constructions of industrial trash, became the third woman to be sponsored by the Women’s Society of Washington University.56 Working with Joan Hall as her master printer, she produced art that incorporated her comfort with working in three- dimensions into a two-dimensional medium that she had never before encountered. It is not surprising that Hall would invite an artist who had never made a print to experiment in St. Louis. By this time WUCPW was becoming recognized as a place that encouraged its artists to challenge accepted methods of mark making. One of the works that Baranek created was #3 Wire and Handmade Paper Print . While it was considered a print, its dimensions (measuring 23 1/8 x 26 x 9 7/8 inches) were quite unusual for a print. #3 Wire and Handmade Paper Print was produced by covering sculpted wire with paper pulp (made by Hall) and then putting it through a press with an etched plate. The resulting piece was then pulled apart again to produce the final three- dimensional piece. The paper pulp, now dried onto the wire, had an etching printed on it. Baranek’s creativity, indeed, had pushed the WUCPW staff’s printmaking expertise further into the untested.

Continuing the trend of attracting important artists, WUCPW opened the year 1995 by hosting Annette Lemieux.57 The work that she produced, Left Right Left Right addressed the issue of social protest, a topic for which Lemieux was well- known. Each installation actually consisted of ten different images printed three times for a total of thirty prints. Because it was so was labor intensive the decision was made to limit the edition size to three. The images were actually photolithographs of people raising a fist, seemingly in protest. (Sources for the fists included Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Nixon, Miss America and other lesser-known personalities.) The works, printed on thick museum board to resemble typical protest signs, were mounted onto wooden stakes that were leaned against a wall when the entire piece was installed. While each raised fist appears to signify solidarity in social protest when seen in this context, in its initial context the sentiments may have been quite different. While Left Right Left Right may not have broken new ground regarding its production techniques

56 Baranek was first invited to St. Louis as a visiting artist in 1992 when Joan Hall hosted her through the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the United States Information Agency in 1992. Then she had produced work for the Laumeier Sculpture Park. JH-is this correctly stated? 57 By 1995 Lemieux’s work was highly recognized and included in such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, acquired her work in May 2000. 15 but this was the first installation piece that the print shop made and certainly its most ambitious in scale if one considers the total area needed to exhibit it. When one compares Lemieux’s piece with the more conventional work done at WUCPW throughout the 1980s, the new focus of art done at the press, not only in appearance but also in content, becomes apparent. Indeed, the work was among the finest that Kevin Garber helped to produce as a master printer at WUCPW.

One of the students who worked on Lemieux’s prints was Tom Huck.58 He had been attracted to the Department because of the big presses, the opportunity to work with visiting artists, and the experimental reputation that the press was developing. WUCPW was a place that was “able to embrace tradition but also explore new possibilities…. you could draw on prints, they were not religious about conventional prints as being the end all of production.” Additionally, as a student he saw people making art for a living and realized that maybe it was possible to be a professional artist. Working with Lemieux was an impressive experience for Huck. “She is about producing work about your own existence and how you relate to your real world,” he remarked.59 “Art is about your political thoughts and the relationship of them to your work. Lemieux was fun to work with and she treated the people who were printing with her as her equal.” The students at WUCPW were not just insignificant assistants. Rather, they were expected to work alongside the master printers. This type of experience certainly accelerated the learning curve of aspiring printmakers.

Not long after Lemieux left, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith arrived for her second visit to the shop. This time she came with ideas and some drawings. Cowboys and Indians, Made in America draws attention to crime in the cities and the prevalence of guns on the streets.60 Many people think of cowboys and Indians as a game, but it is not. The real guns that were used, killed people centuries ago and continue to kill people today. Perhaps one of Quick-to-See Smith’s finest prints was made in St. Louis during this stay. Shown in the 1998 Venice Biennale, Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art depicted a standing rabbit that was walking towards the foreground, represented by illustrating it multiple times in an increasingly larger size. The artist first saw the rabbit image in a book on Peterborough petroglyphs of Ontario.61 In her print Jaune Quick-to-See Smith affirms that the history of this country, and its art, is not merely 300 or 400 years old but extends back 40,000 years to a time when the first groups of nomads entered the territory that is now the Americas. The rabbit petroglyph, an image that had haunted the artist from the first time she saw it in the late 1970s, was a very early form of art found in North America and spoke to Quick-to-See Smith about a history of Native American art that predated, by far, the history of art in

58 Huck was a graduate student in printmaking from 1993 to 1995. Huck’s subsequent statements were made in a conversation with the author, November 28, 2001. 59 Huck’s work is about culture and life in Potosi, the small town where he grew-up. 60 Quick-to-See Smith had close relatives who had lost friends to gun violence. 61 The book was Sacred Art of the Algonkians: A Study of the Peterborough Petroglyphs by Joan Vastokas, with Romas Vastokas. Peterborough: Mansard Press, 1973. Petroglyphs are rock carvings. 16

Western culture. “Even though we are educated in the Euro-American mainstream and learn that Columbus discovered us,” she once remarked,

and even though we eat hot dogs and celebrate Christmas, we still drum and sing just as we’ve done for thousands of years. We still call ourselves, each in our own language. We, the Human Beings and we still make art just as we’ve done for thousands of years.62

Working on such a huge scale (Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art and Cowboys and Indians, Made in America were each seventy-nine inches high and fifty-four inches wide) was unnerving to Quick-to-See Smith. She had never printed on such a big press but, with Peter Marcus there to encourage her throughout the project, she was able to achieve work that is considered among her best. Marcus’ intention was for his artists, under his guidance, to venture into territory unknown to them. His constant presence saw to it that they would achieve the look they sought using tools that were not always familiar. “Peter led the way,” Quick-to-See Smith remarked.63

This “aura” that the shop in St. Louis was a place where an artist could produce some of his/her finest work was certainly substantiated by Juan Sanchez who returned to Washington University to make a print in 1995. So complex that it would take twenty-six months to complete, eventually Sol y Flores Para Liora (Sun and Flowers with Liora) would win the Grand Prize at the Latin American Print Biennial in San Juan in 1998. In the print, Sanchez’s daughter, Liora, wears a small wedding dress and stands in the upper center of the composition. She is surrounded by five depictions of her hands. Nine small silk roses are placed above her head. In the area below Liora are spirals, which symbolize the sun, the original source was Puerto Rican Taino Indian petroglyphs and one large multi-colored flower. The past (immediate and distant), the present, and the future are all given space in this image. Sanchez was referring to his heritage, his culture, and the traditions that become so much a part of his persona.

Perhaps the best characterization of this project and, indeed, the entire print shop is found in the words of Maryanne Ellison Simmons, the master printer with whom Sanchez worked on this visit. When the work was finished she wrote to him, “As ever, this has been a wonderfully complicated project. We’ve worked hard …When we rest up, let’s do it again!”64 This enthusiasm permeated the shop beginning at the top and filtering down. And, the fearless attitude of tackling each difficult project supplied the necessary ingredient for successfully producing unique works of art with the stamp of WUCPW on it. Sol y Flores Para Liora is the combination of a photolithograph, collagraph, silk, and Liquitex hand painted on handmade paper. Nothing is done the “easy” way in St. Louis.65

62 http://www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com/artist/smith/smith.html 63 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith to the author, February 18, 2002. 64 Maryanne Ellison Simmons to Juan Sanchez, February 23, 1997, Island Press Archives, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. 65 Liquitex is an acrylic gloss medium, also called rhoplex. 17

Kevin Garber left WUCPW in the spring of 1996. The shop was without a printer until late in the summer when Joe Deal, Dean of the School of Art, hired Maryanne Ellison Simmons as the master printer as the Collaborative Print Work Shop Coordinator. (In 1998 Simmons was named Co-Director, with Joan Hall, of Island Press.) Simmons immediately began to inventory the holdings of the shop. While Garber had begun to put together a partial inventory of the prints, the task was quite daunting since the works were scattered all over the city.66 One of the first things that Simmons did was to propose that the Washington University Collaborative Printmaking Workshop be renamed. The shop needed a name that was easier to market and WUCPW became Island Press, named in honor of Peter Marcus, its founder.67 (He had been manufacturing his big presses under the name of “Island Press” and this seemed to be a “good name for Peter’s other project.”68) “Island” could also be seen as a reference to the press being an “island” of new ideas in the middle of the country.

Joyce Scott, known for her work in sculpture, beading, and installation art, arrived as a visiting artist two days after Maryanne Simmons began working at the shop.69 Scott came to St. Louis with her mother, Elizabeth Talford Scott, a nationally recognized quilter whom Joyce Scott credits with laying the foundations of her own work. Scott observed that she often used “the techniques she [her mother] taught me in sewing, transferring those not only to quiltmaking or fiber work but into weaving and stitching jewelry.”70 In her art Joyce Scott addresses the difficult issues of stereotypes, violence, and sexism. And, she is acutely cognizant of her ancestry:

I cannot ever forget, nor should I, that I come from a blue collar, in fact in some cases no collar, background. By no collar, I mean slaves. Craft and handwork was a form of communication for slaves, and it is also

66 Some of the prints were with Garber, others were with Peter Marcus, and some were at the art school. (The prints that were at the Washington University Gallery of Art in Steinberg Hall were part of the archive that the gallery was maintaining.) By 1997, the work, once assembled was housed at the school. A year later the inventory was housed in one room in the Art Department at Washington University but the following year (1999) that room was no longer available and inventory was placed into a closet at the University. This would finally change in 2000 when the prints were moved to Simmons’ space, Wildwood Press, in downtown St. Louis on Washington Avenue. And, in 2002, the Island Press inventory was moved from Simmons’ space (due to her resignation as master printer) and returned once again, to the School of Art. 67 Marcus would summer in Rhode Island. His association with that state was an inspiration in the determination of the name, Island Press. The official title of the press is Island Press, Washington University’s School of Art Collaborative Print Workshop. 68 Maryanne Ellison Simmons to Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, e-mail, November 21, 2000. 69 Scott would return two more times, in Spring 1997 and in Fall 1998 to finish the work on the complex print that she chose to do at Island Press, and finally in August 1999 to complete the beaded elements in the edition. 70 Curtia James, “Interview with Joyce Scott,” in exhibition catalogue Sources: Multicultural Influences on Contemporary African American Sculptors, The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, February 2-April 11, 1994, p. 11. [info re publication: Foreword by Terry Gips; contributions by Stephanie Pogue, Tritobia H. Benjamin, David C. Driskell, Curtia James, Robert L. Hall, 1993. 17 pp. Published by The Art Gallery, University of Maryland.] 18

traditionally African….I do not want to forget my heritage, I wanted to extend it.71

Scott produced , Sixteen Days in his Life at Island Press. It is multi-media piece consisting of collagraph, monoprint, woodcut, glass beads, and handmade paper.72 The entire edition took three years to complete. Scott noted that she would not have attempted as complex a print in time allotted her at Island Press were it not for the assistance of the art students in the Department.73 She is committed to helping train the next generation of artists and found the educational experience that she could offer the students to be very fulfilling. Not only did she see herself as making a print, she was also teaching. Scott also observed that the University environment allowed her to “integrate any ideas into her work.” The resources seemed endless and, Maryanne Ellison Simmons, Scott’s printer on the project, was willing to attempt whatever Scott proposed. Sixteen Days in his Life embodied everything that Island Press had come to represent – it was large, it was complex, it challenged the notions of boundaries of printmaking, and its production was dependent upon the active involvement of quite a few students in the Department of Art at the University.

In 1997, almost thirty years after its modest beginnings (Peter Marcus had arrived in St. Louis in 1967) Island Press was gaining significant recognition as print shop that was producing serious work. That spring Juan Sanchez won the grand prize at the Latin American and Caribbean Print Biennial in San Juan for Sol y Flores para Liora. In 1998 Mark Weil, recently named Director of the Washington University Gallery of Art, recognized the import of what was occurring next door to his own institution on campus.74 He quickly sought to work with Island Press in a combined effort to preserve the history of the print shop and, more importantly, to disclose the “secret” of Island Press to the print world. In 1999, the Native American Arts Alliance displayed Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s 40,000 Years of American Art at the Venice Biennale. Island Press began to attract the attention of artists, collectors, and museum curators from across the country. Finally, the holdings of the shop were becoming so abundant that its entire inventory was moved to Simmons’ new studio downtown on Washington Avenue. The editioning of each Island Press print continued to be done in Simmons’ space, a task that became far easier when she moved her studio downtown from the previous location thirty miles away. It was here that she also ran her own Wildwood Press.

Building upon these successes, Island Press hosted Chicago artist Nick Cave in January 1999. Cave is a multi-media artist known for his fashion design, fiber work, performances (he also had formal training as a dancer), sculpture, and

71 Joyce Scott quoted, Invitation to Lecture, Steinberg Hall, Washington University in St. Louis, March 15, 1998. (Island Press Archives, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.) 72 Some of the prints are also hand colored. 73 Joyce Scott to the author, December 5, 2001. All subsequent quotations are from this conversation. 74 Weil previously, and still holds the appointment, as Professor in the Department of Art History and Archeology teaching courses covering Medieval to nineteenth century art. His official title is E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts. 19 collages and assemblages of objects that he collects. His art looks at political and social issues including AIDS, gender, race, and sexuality. The strength of Cave’s work lies in the dramatic manner in which he combines his media while commenting upon the human condition. His ability, as well as his desire, to reach beyond conventional limits made him a perfect candidate to work at Island Press.

The prints that Cave eventually produced in St. Louis resonated with the eloquent language of his three-dimensional objects. Rather than using a traditional print sub-strait such as a metal plate, Cave printed on found objects, in this instance used shirts that had been stitched together to form the “plate” from which the print was made. Both MASS and Virus were quickly considered among the most creatively produced prints that had been done in the shop. MASS was made from the used shirts that had been assembled by Cave and then rholplex (rolplexis is a latex medium) and printed. In the triptych Virus, the image is a bacterium associated with AIDS. The outside panels are collagraphs made with actual shirts. The central panel is an abstract collagraph with a photolithograph printed on top. In St. Louis, Cave was able to combine his interest in fibers, found objects, assemblage, and sculpture with a social issue, here AIDS, to produce an unusual art which had that that Island Press “look.” That is, his was an art that tested the limits of experimental printmaking.

Yizhak Elyashiv was invited to work at Island Press in March 2000. By this time his art was already included in major museum collections including The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; and the New York Public Library. When she invited him to work at Island Press, Maryanne Ellison Simmons wrote, “As you know, The Department of Printmaking and Drawing specializes in small editions of large, experimental work.”75 While many of Elyashiv’s works were quite big before he worked at the print shop, until he made the eight maps during his week at Island Press, Map #3 (illus) (triptychs where each print measured 105 x 53”) his large prints actually consisted of assembling images made from multiple small sheets of paper. Instead of printing one foot square plates on one foot square pieces of paper and assembling them, at Island Press Elyashiv used one foot sintra plates and printed them together on large sheets of paper.76 He was especially attracted to the idea of working on big papers on the big press – something he had not done before. He has stated that he produces oversized images not just because he likes to work big but also because the large size relates to the gesture that is essential in his work.77 Elyashiv’s “maps” were made by throwing grains over a large surface, marking the spots where they landed with a drop of ink, and printing the image. He made a total of seven throws, marked each throw with a different color, and then connected the spots with lines. As printing continued, the marked intersections changed from points marked by a small number to points of color to drilled holes in the plate. His work is about order and systems and, indeed, the finished image is reminiscent of charts of the heavens.

75 Maryanne Ellison Simmons to Yizhak Elyashiv, November 23, 1999, copy in Island Press Archives, Washington University in St. Louis. 76 Sintra is lightweight commercial display board plastic. 77 Yizhak Elyashiv to the author, March 7, 2002. 20

Like other artists who had been invited to the print shop, Eylashiv was especially attracted to the bustle of activity that surrounded him as he worked. As an artist who was accustomed to printing his own art, the week spent in St. Louis invigorated him and he found it inspiring to have so many people enthusiastic about the work he was producing. Indeed, in May 2000, Elyashiv wrote to Simmons that “printing on a small format press seems so un-exciting and I haven’t printed much since my visit. I am [however] working on a new set of plates and have some ideas for new work. Time went by so quickly during my visit. I wish that I had more time to explore the collagraph.”78

As an artist who prefers to do site-specific work, Franco Mondini-Ruiz arrived in St. Louis in February 2001 without a pre-determined plan for the art that he would make there. He produced The Lavendar Hour ,a multiple done in an edition of twenty. It consisted of ten small “installations” made from modeling clay, each set within its own acrylic jar, and all placed on a four-foot long wooden shelf. On purely practical terms, an ambitious project such as this would have been very difficult to finish by one artist working alone. With Maryanne Simmons directing the shop, he realized that anything he wanted to attempt would be accomplished with the resources at hand or could be obtained within a day. The participation of the students was essential and Mondini-Ruiz even allowed them, under his guidance, to use their own discretion in the production of some of the figurines. It was all part of the process.

The Lavender Hour has some similarities with Mondini-Ruiz’s most well known work, Infinito Botanica. In that “installation”, he purchased a Mexican botanica (in his hometown, San Antonio) and used the existing inventory as “part of a social and figurative sculpture that mixed traditional botanica fare with my own sculpture and installations, contemporary work of local cutting-edge and outsider artists, locally made craft, folk art, cultural artifacts and junk.”79 Mondini-Ruiz saw Infinito Botanica as a place where disparate social populations would come together for a common interest.80 The Lavender Hour also brought together disparate entities but this time they were dualities of ideas. Mondini-Ruiz wanted this piece to reflect St. Louis as much as it would embody his own philosophies.81 He was struck by Peter Raven’s (Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis) statement that, while the Botanical Garden was preserving rare species in the landscape, those species and indeed, the entire

78 Yizhak Elyashiv to Maryanne Ellison Simmons, May 1, 2000, Island Press Archives, Washington University in St. Louis. 79 Franco Mondini-Ruiz, “Artist Statement.” Statement sent by Franco Mondini-Ruiz to Maryanne Ellison Simmons, nd, Island Press Archives. A botanica was a traditional Mexican shop that sold religious objects including figurines, herbs, candles, as well as herbs and medicines. The botanica that Mondini-Ruiz purchased in San Antonio had been in business since the 1930s. Smaller versions of the Infinito Botanica were installed at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annondale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1999 or was this in NYC?; and at the Whitney Biennial, 2000. 80 Franco Mondini-Ruiz, “Artist Statement.” Statement sent by Franco Mondini-Ruiz to Maryanne Ellison Simmons, nd, Island Press Archives. 81 All subsequent information and quotations were from a conversation between the author and Franco Mondini-Ruiz, March 19, 2002. 21 landscape, as we know it, was in danger of eventual extinction.82 Mondini-Ruiz eternalized his landscapes into dreamy vignettes that recalled the lost neo- classical landscape of the St. Louis World’s Fair, almost one-hundred years before in 1904. He created a duality by placing the neo-classical vignettes in the modernist environment of plastic jars set upon a contemporary shelf. Mondini- Ruiz was very conscious of producing delicate, almost feminine works that romanticized the past. Further contrasts were created by juxtaposing male and female energies within each piece or by comparing the decadence of the scenes with the social awareness of one trying to preserve the past. Mondini-Ruiz was also referencing the melancholy of T.S. Eliot, who was from St. Louis. Referring to the author’s writings, Mondini-Ruiz remarked that Eliot’s angst was reflective of what many people were feeling at the turn of this millennium.

Island Press underwent a major renovation of its space in the summer of 2001. It was then that Joan Hall realized her long-standing ambition of designing a “facility that reflected our attitude towards printmaking. That is, one of large scale, mixed media, experimental prints and printmaking.”83All the printing could now be done in one room, affectionately called the “ballroom” because it occupied the old space of Bixby Gallery, where all art school receptions were located. For the first time in the history of the school there was an etching facility that can handle large-scale work. This enabled experimentation with 4x8 foot plates. A room dedicated to computers and scanners was built and the shop now had the ability to do Xerox roll-ups as large as 500 feet long. Prints can now be tiled in the computer and plastic plate lithographs, called pronto plates, can be printed on by a laser printer.84 Equipment to facilitate screenprinting was installed.85 In essence, Island Press became a full service print shop – unprecedented in the history of the contract shop at Washington University. (Long-range plans are to purchase equipment that will allow the production of digital collagraphs.)

Shimon Okshteyn, who made his prints at Island Press in 2002, had been working big for a number of years. His enormous graphite drawings (a 7x4 foot drawing on canvas was an “average” size for him) depict discarded mundane objects such as old suitcases, clocks, shoes, or irons. Okshteyn discovers a poetry in his photo-realist depictions of these objects and rescues them from the oblivion of the past. Simmons was immediately attracted to Okshteyn’s work when she first saw it in New York in November 2000. While Okshteyn had made traditional lithographs on stone in Paris with Mourlot, he had never made a print that was the size of his drawings. Indeed, he remarked that it took him a few days to learn how to translate his big work to another medium.86 Working with cast paper, painting pulp, lithography, and collagraph, he produced 3 separate

82 The week before he arrived in St. Louis, Mondini-Ruiz had heard a televised interview of Raven in which he made this statement. 83 Joan Hall to the author, November 27, 2001. 84 When a print is “tiled,” the entire image is divided, and printed, into smaller segments (often squares) and reassembled as a whole for display. 85 Large wash out sinks that would make it possible to clean silkscreens as well as large papermaking frames were designed by Hall. 86 Shimon Okshteyn to the author, December 24, 2001. 22 images of an alarm clock and a comb during the week he spent in St. Louis. (Alarm Clock )He seized upon the opportunity that Simmons offered him to push his boundaries of creativity, to experiment with the tools that she made available. And like Elyashiv and so many artists before him, Okshteyn was especially impressed by the zeal of the students, their flexibility, and their desire to accommodate the visiting artist. He found them very willing to try anything new, an attitude that was certainly fostered by the presence of Simmons and Hall. The grand images that Okshteyn produced tower as the paradigm of Island Press’s mission – their complexity marked by their size and combination of processes (handmade paper, painting pulp, collagraph, and lithograph) was best achieved through a collaboration of artist, master printers, and an “army” of aspiring young artists who had enormous drive and passion.

In late winter 2002, Maryanne Ellison Simmons (Washington University MFA in printmaking 1992) announced her plans to retire from Island Press in order to devote full attention to her own print shop, Wildwood Press. Tom Reed, who had been the intaglio printer with Jack Lemon at Landfall Press in Chicago, was named as her successor. Joan Hall resumed full-time responsibilities as Director and the Island Press operations, which had been partially in Simmons’ studio, were moved back to Bixby Hall on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Island Press began as a small collaborative operation at a time when there were many large, successful, and very professional print shops operating across the country. Peter Marcus knew that he had to make his press different. By utilizing the resources that were available to him in a University setting, he carved out his unique space. Beginning with a modest grant, a small shop, and one master printer making a preponderance of traditional lithographs, he built the facilities and hired staff who shared a similar vision. A critical turning point occurred in the early 1990s when Joan Hall insisted that the students be brought into the production process. The youthful energy that they brought with them, accompanied by their new, and sometimes uninhibited ideals, fostered an atmosphere that, in turn, invigorated the artists working there. The availability of such a concentrated labor force allowed the visiting artists to “think complex” if they so desired.

Kevin Garber once said that he always thought that Island Press was a “sleeping orchid waiting to be discovered.”87 Today, Peter Marcus’ vision has been realized. He wants his legacy to be seen as someone who “brought some innovation to the nature of printmaking, changed the nature of what it can be. I want it to be remembered that I brought large scale to the presses. I also want to make printmaking into an art form that competes visually with everything else. There is no limitation to printmaking. If you think about it, you can make it.”88 Now, because of Marcus’ and subsequently Joan Hall’s leadership, the prints that are made at Island Press have a complexity that takes them beyond the realm of the traditional print. There is very little that the printers at Island Press

87 Kevin Garber interview, April 3, 2000. 88 Peter Marcus to the author, November 28, 2001. 23 will not attempt. Some of Island Press’s works are as large as oversize paintings with a texture that can challenge any brushwork. Their presence can overwhelm a space much as some paintings do. Some of the works have a three- dimensionality that is sculptural. Some of the works can be considered installations rather than prints. The work can “compete visually with everything else.” In an era when boundaries between printmaking and other arts media are becoming more blurred each day, Island Press has marked a space for itself that continues to command the attention and respect it well deserves.

Marilyn Kushner Saint Louis, Missouri, 2002

Curator and Chair of the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photography, Brooklyn Museum of Art